Spider-Woman

Spider-Woman was a fantastic animated series from Marvel at a time when cartoons had begin to dumb down. What you get from Spider-Woman is still quite juvenile, but it manages to capture enough of the Marvel/Stan Lee spirit to make it a hit. The characterisations of Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman and co are good enough to make this an interesting Cartoon, and it has the added plus that it doesn't talk down to the viewer.

It was very interesting for Marvel to choose to make an Animated series about Spider-Woman in the first place. The character had only appeared briefly in the pages of Marvel Comics and then she was cast as a villain. The comics writers had to create a whole new character to accomodate the series, and with a fresh origin etc. The character of Spider-Man is all but jettisoned from the proccedings albeit as a guest star in the pilot episode Pyramids Terror. This series was exciting, funny and is well worth a look for Marvel afficianadoes.

The Spider-Woman animated series (ABC) lasted from 1979 until 1980, with 13 episodes produced.

In the 1970s, Marvel Comics created a handful of female versions of some of Marvel's popular male characters (allegedly, just so no one else could lay claim to the names): Spider-Woman, the She-Hulk, and Ms. Marvel. Of those three, Spider-Woman quickly became a prominent marketing co-mascot (along with Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Captain America), appearing on various Marvel-branded licensed merchandise, and serving as their de facto representative for lady superheroes (rival DC Comics owned longtime icon Wonder Woman).

Marvel's first animation production house (in cooperation with the DePatie/Freling, firm, who pioneered the "Pink Panther" toons) developed this show.

The show alters the backstory for Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman. The comics had an arguably complicated origin story, which posited her as being born in the 1920's, struck by radiation poisoning, then placed in suspended animation where she slowly grew to adulthood over several decades (while periodically being injected with life-preserving drugs based on spider-proteins)..

The producers wisely jettisoned this origin, and simply state that a pre-teen Jessica was bitten by a spider when fooling around in her father's research laboratory. A hasty antidote is created, based on the spider's venom, which ends up giving Jessica her trademark powers. As an adult, Spider-Woman can crawl on walls, has super-strength, can mentally communicate with spiders, has a spider-sense that borders on true clairvoyance, can cast webbing from her fingertips, and can glide on air currents with her web-wings (the webcasting, spider-sense and spider-telepathy were not from the comics). Curiously, she transforms into her Spider-Woman costume simply by spinning around in place (and weaving a thin web around herself)-- this was seemingly taken directly from the "Wonder Woman" TV show.

The adult Jessica is now a magazine publisher (Justice Magazine), though apparently she often serves as her own reporter, along with pilot/photographer Jeff (a dead ringer for Peter Parker) by her side, as well as her nephew Billy (Billy's parents, including a presumed Drew sibling, are never seen).

The Kingpin and Dormammu are among the Marvel comics villains used here, though the portrayals are not exactly as the comics origins.

Spider-Man is a guest in two episodes-- though in both, Spider-Woman is clearly the main star, and viewers never see Spider-Man out of costume.

The animation was about par for the time (late 70's). Not pioneering, but not "Rocky & Bullwinkle" cheap, either.

Joan Van Ark ("Falcon Crest") did the voice of Jessica/Spider-Woman.

It would be great to have this series on DVD. Disney acquired Marvel Comics in 2009, including the back catalog video rights to all animated TV shows based their characters. Spider-Woman has been released on DVD in Europe, but not the USA yet.

This show was actually not that bad. For an animated superhero show in the late seventies, the story lines are well developed, the hero plays well with the situations, and the dialogue is full of quips. The only downfall of this show are the supporting characters. Not only are Billy and Jeff cringe stereotypical characters, but we as an audience have to endure their endless anti-woman empowerment jokes. These ceaseless put-downs make me question why Jessica Drew, a self made business woman, secret superhero, and altogether independent woman, hangs out with these losers. This show would never be able to air in today's world due to its portrayal of male superiority. Frankly, I enjoyed this show. I would like to see a reboot or remake with a more supportive supporting cast of characters.

This show make no sense whatsoever, and that's generally fun. Spider-Woman defeats alien mummies with cubes. It absurd, ridiculous, and needs to be seen to be believed . My only real gripe is the series use of spider-man. He's only in two episodes, but he's weirdly condescending and kinda sexist to spider-woman, and this isn't portrayed as a bad thing. It's at its worst at the end of his second appearance. Spider-Woman gets captured and Spidey has to saves her, and even takes down the villain basically by himself. He also randomly asks her out afterwards. Making Spider-Man into a sexist jerk and Spider-Woman into a damsel in distress in her own show isn't great. Thankfully he's gone after that, and she goes back to beating up Dracula and stuff.

Her spider-like powers include flying and shooting lasers from her hands and she works for a magazine. It's funny that they thought her origin had to be different than Spider-Man's but then she works at a magazine. The first episode had Spider-Man in it for no apparent reason, he had nothing to do with the story. Of course there's the random little boy who has full access to the magazine offices and goes on adventures with her and the photographer. In almost every episode they think she died because she just jumps out of vehicles. This is bad but Marvel has done worse.